


melty marbled

by CravenWyvern



Series: DS Extras [56]
Category: Don't Starve (Video Game)
Genre: Kingly Figure Statue, Vague gender dysphoria, headcanons galore
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-13
Updated: 2020-01-13
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:48:58
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,127
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22240591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CravenWyvern/pseuds/CravenWyvern
Series: DS Extras [56]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/688443
Kudos: 28





	melty marbled

This statue was new.

Save for the soft chirps and sing songs of morning birds, red and yellow, the fainter caws of bickering crows, the forest was oddly silent. No steam or accordion metal clockwork here; only cracked marble and frayed carpet, stone hewn statue and the rooting spiky dark flowers.

A few butterflies here and there that he acknowledged, one passing by him before delicately landing atop a particularly spiny crimson maroon flower. The insect did not seem to mind that the petals twitched underneath its legs, simple mindedly focused on the foul smelling nectar.

Maxwell watched as the flower faintly convulsed, snapping the bug up and crushing its life to pieces. Carnivorous, hungry things, weren't they?

His fondness for them still held, and he made sure to avoid stepping on them as he approached the center piece. The pack on his back was nearly full by now, shouldering the odd mismatch of trinkets, gems, and the rare amulets he had dug up inside this forest. Grave markers scattered everywhere, last words engraved on a few yet most cracked and overgrown, but he's left more untouched by now; his shovel snapped after the tenth grave robbing, his cue to take a break. 

This set of marble and dark flowers was not near any path, settled deeply hidden away, and he was already planning to return later, gather up the flowers for more useful purposes. Perhaps he could trade a bit with the automaton; the cultivation of these finicky flowers always required one to be on top of the pollination practice or they may die out quickly. Even if WX78 had nothing Maxwell wanted the act of giving new plant stock may just allow him a bit of leeway on some other day.

Thinking a few steps ahead when interacting with the robot was in his best interest, especially if he wanted to keep being among the living. WX78 kept grudges.

But it wasn't just the flowers he found of interest here.

The carpet, frayed and dirtied and aged terribly, stains and molded from outside exposure, muffled his steps from the clacking his shoes had done on the marble, and the statue before him was thronged with dark flowers. No weeds sprouted between the parasitic blooms, but eyeing the brambles spilling through there had once been something else attempting to grow here.

The dried out remains of wilted roses, small things overtaken by the dark flowers. Corpse blooms not yet rotted to the soil, and Maxwell rolled his eyes as he finally turned his attention to the statue itself.

He had been putting it off for a reason, but now standing before it he ignored the stark symbolism surrounding it in favor for the actual carved marble.

Shorn, angled and set in the same style as many of the other statues found scattered about. Not the ones that bastardized his petrified clockwork creations, no, this was just a statue. Set similar to the regal forms and their comedy/tragedy meanings; cut from the neck and then at torso, lacking arms, lacking anything but the obvious.

Maxwell idly brushed his own suit off, knowing it had a coating of grave dust and dirt to it now, needles from the pines and overall worn down from his stay out in these wilds. Not picture perfect or pristine compared to the statues own suit, or what could be seen of it.

It should be easy to tell who it was framed after; it _was_ easy, obvious, and his face slid into a tense frown, staring at it.

Not even following the design of his own statues, the dark stone ones the others still found here and there about the Constants maps. Most nowadays had their heads removed, desecrated remains of all that his reign had entailed. 

No one was fond of remembering that time, least of all himself. Those statues were silly reminders, mocking him.

Always mocking him.

Still, Maxwell tilted his head as he eyed this statue itself, judging it in comparison. He could already tell he liked his old statues more.

He took another step closer, minding the faint twitches of the flowers underneath as his shoes shuffled close to them, and leaned up to let his nearsightedness get a proper look.

It did not have an appearance similar enough to his old statues.

Maxwell's frown deepened, before he reached up, hesitated only a moment before brushing his gloved hand over the marble stone shoulders, drifting vaguely over to the cut away throat, the stone set tie, viewing the posture, distance, weight and cut.

He fought the panging urge to check his own shoulders, hand curling into a fist as he made himself stand straighter, stiffening up.

It was very obviously _not_ like the figures he himself had once put so much thought and energy into creating. Frivolous as they had been, showing his visage as ruler of this world and usually surrounded by his loyal bishops, rooks, and knights, but now all somehow ironic that their loyalties were nonexistent. They locked their weapons on him as they did to all the rest of the pawns, and just as with the hounds there was no recognition inside them whatsoever. 

All he has done for this horrid world, this universe, and what did it repay him back with? Death and pain and ever mocking him and all he has lost.

Maxwell glowered at the statue, glowered at its lack of arms, lack of the claws his own statues had, the lack of powerful posture and snarling smirk and the way stone captured something he was still having a hard time even keeping a weak hold onto nowadays.

The King was a helpless piece, protected by its kingdom and bolstered by its subjects, but a kingdomless king was easy pickings. He may be down here with the ignorant worms now, but Maxwell knew that every map, every plane was set in a specific tailored way, made to expectation. This statue and its overabundance of flowers had been set here for a reason, and he had stumbled upon it as he had been scripted to.

He took a step back, spine aching now and jaw grit tight, jagged teeth grinding together as his hands curled into tight fists, hissing out a tense exhale.

She was _mocking_ him.

A snarl set on his face, some sort of hidden knotting rage rising awake in his chest, and Maxwell glared at the simple statue, wishing with more effort than usual that he had brought along a pickaxe. 

It sat there, mocking him in all its diminished state, a fragile hunk of marble near anyone could just smash up, helpless without guards and surrounded by that which would eat it alive if given the right circumstances.

 _His_ statues, even now as they crumbled with age and new rulership, at the very least took effort to destroy. Thicker hard stone, basalt and wickedly sharp, and maybe he had fiddled with the stylization, maybe it hadn't reflected the true form of the Nightmare King, exaggeratingly too tall and too thin, nightmarish and just-

It had looked _exactly_ how he had wanted it to be seen, and now its replacement was reduced to this mockery!?

This white grey streaked marbled thing, easy to sculpt and destroy and haul around even, a matching suit and tie to boot! There it stood, surrounded by death and floral parasites and cracked tile, torn carpet, a diminutive thing with hunched, too small shoulders and too much weight in the wrong places on its leaning form, and his jaw started to ache, not even wanting to try and think of what the blasted thing would have looked had it been completed as a full figure.

He knew he was being mocked, had to be, and just seeing the bloody thing now with that knowledge was making his skin _crawl_.

He hated it. Maxwell absolutely detested its appearance.

But it had been placed here by the Queen, and he had no more say for what was to be created nor uncreated. It was not up to him to decide what was the _right_ way things should appear, not anymore.

He half turned on his heel, a sneer on his face as he brushed the grave dust off him, an automatic movement to adjust his suit, straighten up and calm himself, _she_ may have the power to do as she wished but _he_ knew better, didn't he, but even the familiar act had him hiss at the knowledge that that marble _thing_ mimicked him, pull his hands away and suddenly have the horrid shaky awareness of-

_-hating everything._

Maxwell forcefully closed his eyes, hissing in and exhaling out, feeling too crowded, jittery and disgustingly not _right,_ and focused.

What was it that Higgsbury and the others all did when they got, overwhelmed, was that the word? It was counting, numbers for the lot of them, as if counting to ten would actually _help_ -

But it was worth the try, and after a few moments of counting each breath, the rattling wheeze at the restriction of not inhaling deep enough, reaching ten and then sliding upwards until twenty, Maxwell belatedly realized that the jitter of nerves was fading.

Opening his eyes to see another butterfly pass by, this one wisely avoiding the dark flowers and heading off into the trees instead, he finally unclenched his teeth, spine cracking as he straightened from hunching over, a habit he had shaken off but was becoming familiar once again nowadays. Apparently, that was what harsh labor and stressed survival did when coupled with age.

This time when he puffed up, swung around to give the statue a last glower and brush his suit with a bit more confidence, no… _unnecessary_ thoughts rose up. None more than usual anyway, and it was just a simple statue, nothing more to it, and Maxwell narrowed his eyes as he forcefully believed in this fact.

There was no reason to think it had been mocking him specifically. The other pawns wore suits infrequently, but fashion choice in the Constant was always up in the air and he knew for a fact that Higgsbury had a black outfit himself. The marble figure was not all about him, just as the world did not circle him any longer.

Not necessarily comforting to recognize, but right now it eased the mind. There was nothing about the statue that emulated him, Maxwell assured himself, this time more stubbornly.

And, well...Charlie wouldn't do that. She wasn't that sort of person, even now with the amount of sheer hatred he could feel out in the darkness; she would not target him with some stupid little carved marble.

And, not in the way his mind had first thought. Jumping to conclusions, and that one saying about assuming things.

It was near subconscious effort nowadays, to shove unnecessarily stressful thoughts to the side, make himself focus on smaller trains of thought. Being stubborn eased the way, as always.

As such, this set piece had nothing to do with him, besides the dark flowers of course. Maxwell eyed the twitching things, a few detached butterfly wings here and there, but he did not feel up to gathering them now. His pack had all sorts of goodies from the local graves, and sorting them back near his own little spot of camp was something he thought to be more worthwhile.

No statues in the camp, not after the incident with the knight piece awakening under new moon. He could sit down for awhile as well.

And any eyes on him saw him as he presented himself, not any other way.

That thought was more rambled, _unwanted_ , and shoving it far back, taking a breath as deep in its rattle as he could, Maxwell turned away and walked off the stained carpet, over the crumbling marble and onto thick forest turf and underbrush, leaving the set piece, and its flowers, behind.

Kingdomless Kings may be without loyalists, he idly thought, but a wily one can slip under the radar for a long time yet. No announcing trumpets to rumble over majesty, but as if he actually needed that.

One of the things Maxwell has found helpful to learn after losing the Throne came back to him as he hiked onwards:

_If you want something done right, do it yourself._

And, even as his back began to ache, knowing he may not be as pristine as cut stone nor as envisioned as carved basalt, there was more confidence in his every step.

Because, as Maxwell smirked, bizarrely pleased at his line of thinking, everyone saw him the way he wished them to.

And they saw him the _right_ way.

Or, more appropriately - _his_ way.


End file.
